Thursday, March 26, 2009

So I've downloaded and skimmed the proposed GOP "budget" (you can get a pdf copy here) I put the word "budget" in quotes because it is immediately apparent, from even the most cursory examination, that the document that the GOP is referring to as a "budget" is, in fact, no such thing. It is basically a propaganda pamphlet that takes swipes at the administration's bailout plan, while presenting vague, unspecific, unsupported, goals as an alternative (an even this it does only sparingly). Here, for instance, is the Republican entitlement reform "plan," as it pertains to health care:

republicans’ solutionInstead of accelerating the demise of our nation’s largeentitlement programs and creating an unsustainable newgovernment health care program, Republicans seek toprovide universal access to affordable health care and toaddress Medicare and Medicaid’s trillion dollarunfunded liabilities with common-sense reforms thatensure our children and grandchildren can secure benefitsin the future.Republicans support leveling the playing field throughpolicies that will provide tax incentives for millions moreworking families and small business owners to obtainaccess to coverage.Republicans also support breaking down the balkanizedbarriers within our current health insurance industry,allowing individuals to shop across state lines to purchaseaffordable policies that best meet their needs.Independent estimates suggest that as many as 12 millionindividuals could obtain access to health insurancethrough this approach alone—health insurance thatwould be more responsive to individual consumers’needs.Republicans support reasonable limits on non-economicdamages, along with penalties for trial lawyers who filefrivolous lawsuits, among other reforms necessary topreserve patients’ relationships with their physicians andend the unnecessary defensive medicine practicesincreasing costs for all Americans.With regard to entitlements, Republicans support thenotion that wealthy seniors like Warren Buffett andGeorge Soros can afford to pay $2 per day more for theirMedicare prescription drug coverage. But we would gofurther to save Medicare, by simplifying the currentbenefit structure in traditional Medicare to include acatastrophic cap on out-of-pocket expenses for the firsttime in the program’s history. And Republicans planvigorous efforts to combat waste, fraud, and abuse inorder to make traditional Medicare more efficient.Republicans also want to restore quality, care, andefficiency to the Medicaid program and will look togovernors as the laboratories to improve and enhance theprogram. A more flexible financing structure will removestates’ current incentive to engage in what one liberaladvocacy group called “accounting arrangements…designed primarily to provide a windfall for stategovernments.” More importantly, additional flexibilitywill allow states to design program improvements forbeneficiaries—for instance, using state dollars tosupplement private health insurance coverage. UnlikeDemocrats who continue to block new state-level reformsin order to expand government-run programs,Republicans believe that providing beneficiaries withadditional choices will improve quality of care whileslowing health cost growth.

Now, you might be asking yourself: what kind of a budget names George Soros by name? The answer, of course, is: a vaguely worded political tract thinly disguised as a budget. And let me say that I'm being overly generous in this description. This pamphlet is "thinly disguised as a budget" only in the sense that GOP officials are referring to it as a budget. Even the document's cover page does not make that audacious claim, calling itself instead a "road to recovery."

And what's worse, there doesn't appear to be a word in this document that hasn't been GOP shibboleth for the last 30 years. Consider the quoted text above, which claims to be the GOP approach to entitlement reform. The first thing you'll notice is that it promises "universal access to affordable health care." This claim is laughable once you scan the sparse details the document offers. How will it do this? Well: (1) by providing tax incentives. (2) by restricting States abilities to regulate the quality and content of health insurance policies (3) by asking Warren Buffet and George Soros to pay $730 a year in additional medicare premiums. This is the same B.S. the GOP has been selling since before I can remember. Does anyone seriously think that these steps would do anything to slash the ranks of the uninsured in this country?

In sum, the document is an absurd sham. Hopefully we'll see it savaged in the press tonight. If Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and John Stewart don't tear this thing to shreds they'll have missed a golden opportunity to do the nation a service.